11 



The development of association under Berkeley and Hume 

 is, however, not carried out as a matter of psychological inter- 

 est, but rather because of its metaphysical bearings. The 

 real psychological development of the theory is found in Hart- 

 ley, Priestley, James and John Stuart Mill, and Alexander 

 Bain. It, too, goes back to Locke and the theory of simple 

 ideas for its basis, but it borrows at the outset from two widely 

 different sources, namely, Newton's suggested theory of ether, 

 and Gay's application of association in the realm of morals, as 

 an explanation of our so-called intellectual (as distinguished 

 from sensuous) pleasures and pains. 



5. REV. JOHN GAY. 



Rev. Mr. Gay, 1 having appropriated the suggestion thrown 

 out by Locke as to the operation of 'association' in conscious- 

 ness, based his essay ' Concerning the Criterion of Virtue' on. 

 what he had read in Locke. Hutcheson 2 and others, contem- 

 poraries of Gay, had claimed that man was possessed of an 

 innate moral sense, by means of which every man could dis- 

 criminate between good and evil. This, however, for Gay and 

 his associates, was an unnecessary assumption, since all mental 

 states arise from sensations through the sense organs. From 

 this standpoint, Gay came to the conclusion that if the reasons 

 for our actions are sufficiently analysed, it will be found that 

 one's own happiness is the ultimate criterion for conduct. 

 Ordinarily, however, this is not always apparent. While in 

 many cases the individual may have his own happiness in view, 

 in the majority of cases this is not so. How then comes he to 

 act, when this ultimate criterion of conduct is not in conscious- 

 ness? This is accounted for, on Gay's theory, by the doctrine 

 of Association of Ideas. Moral maxims originate in connec- 

 tion with the happiness of individuals; through habit or associ- 

 ation this end gradually fades from view, and the observance 

 of such maxims comes to be more or less second nature. 

 "Whenever this end is not perceived," therefore, our actions 

 ' 'are to be accounted for from the association of ideas' '. 3 Gay 

 continues: "The case is really thus: We first perceive or 

 imagine some real good, that is, fitness to promote our happi- 

 ness in those things which we love and approve of. Hence we 



141 A Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle and Immediate 

 Criterion of Virtue", prefixed to Law's translation of Wm. King's ' Origin 

 of Evil", 1731. 



2 Francis Hutcheson, "A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy , 2nd 



ed. 1753. Ch. I. 

 3 O.C. p. 14. 



